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Hackers trace ISIS Twitter accounts back to the UK govt

February 19, 2017 By administrator

A group of hackers known as VandaSec claims three ISIS Twitter accounts trace back to computers belonging to the UK government.

According to the revelation of a group of hackers known as VandaSec, at least three Islamic State Twitter social media accounts are run from IP addresses linked to the British government’s Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).

VandaSec has discovered the internet protocol (IP) addresses used by three jihadists to access Twitter accounts involved in the activities of propaganda and online recruitment.

According to the Daily Mirror, the IP addresses belong to the DWP’s London offices.

“Hackers have claimed that a number of Islamic State supporters’ social media accounts are being run from internet addresses linked to the Department of Work and Pensions. A group of four young computer experts who call themselves VandaSec have unearthed evidence indicating that at least three ISIS-supporting accounts can be traced back to the DWP.”

“Don’t you think that’s strange?” said one of the hackers to the Daily Mirror. “We traced these accounts back to London, the home of the British intelligence services,” they added.

There are two hypotheses on the strange discovery:

There are ISIS Sympathizers inside the British government.
The accounts are used by the British intelligence to identify wannabe terrorists and other members of the organization.

The addresses were thought to be based in Saudi Arabia, in reality, the Cabinet Office admitted to selling IP addresses to two Saudi companies earlier this year, this is the reason why the IP appears to be linked to the British Government.

“The government owns millions of unused IP addresses which we are selling to get a good return for hardworking taxpayers,” a Cabinet Office spokesperson said. “We have sold a number of these addresses to telecoms companies, both in the UK and internationally, to allow their customers to connect to the internet.” “We think carefully about which companies we sell addresses to, but how their customers use this internet connection is beyond our control.”

Source: http://securityaffairs.co/wordpress/42881/hacking/isis-twitter-linked-uk-govt.html

Source: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/technology-science/technology/hackers-trace-isis-twitter-accounts-7010417

Pierluigi Paganini

Pierluigi Paganini is Chief Information Security Officer at Bit4Id, firm leader in identity management, member of the ENISA (European Union Agency for Network and Information Security)Treat Landscape Stakeholder Group, he is also a Security Evangelist, Security Analyst and Freelance Writer. Editor-in-Chief at “Cyber Defense Magazine”, Pierluigi is a cyber security expert with over 20 years experience in the field, he is Certified Ethical Hacker at EC Council in London. The passion for writing and a strong belief that security is founded on sharing and awareness led Pierluigi to find the security blog “Security Affairs” recently named a Top National Security Resource for US. Pierluigi is a member of the “The Hacker News” team and he is a writer for some major publications in the field such as Cyber War Zone, ICTTF, Infosec Island, Infosec Institute, The Hacker News Magazine and for many other Security magazines. Author of the Books “The Deep Dark Web” and “Digital Virtual Currency and Bitcoin”.

Account number opened for European Armenians to support Sasna Tsrer group

August 3, 2016 By administrator

account for YEREVAN. – Branches of Armenian Renaissance Diaspora organization have appealed to Armenia’s Funding Parliament radical opposition group, proposing to open accounts in every state for conducting fundraising in order to cover the Sasna Tsrer group attorney’s fees and their family needs. The funds raised will be sent to Armenia and will also be used for special purposes, reads the statement issued by Founding Parliament.

“The Founding Parliament will present you the account numbers, which are authorized to gather the fundraising. Today we have received the account number for the European Armenians. In the future, we will also present those for America, Canada and Lebanon,” the statement reads.

Below is the account number for the European Armenians:

BANK NAME :CREDIT MUTUEL BANK

ADDRESS : 198 Avenue de Paris 92320 Chatillon, FRANCE

IBAN: FR76 1027 8060 3400 0205 0904 133

BIC: CMCIFR2A BENEFICIARY

ACCOUNT NUMBER : 10278 06034 00020509041

BENEFICIARY NAME: Renaissance Arménienne Paris

Turkey fraud exposes secret Swiss account of firm tied to gov’t

August 20, 2014 By administrator

A company with close ties to the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) government stashed a great deal of money gained from public contracts in a secret Swiss bank account, a Turkish daily reported on Tuesday.

The revelation of the Swiss account was uncovered when one of the partners in the company filed a complaint in court claiming that he was cheated by his partners, who emptied the bank account without informing him.

According to the story published by the independent Taraf daily, the company, identified as the Ertuğrul Grup, a construction company owned by three cousins, Kemal E., Koray E. and Gıyasi Ö, has won major contracts from both government and AK Party-run municipalities over many years.

The total sum of contracts awarded to the company was estimated to be some $500 million. The company has won major contracts from the Ankara Metropolitan Municipality. As the company’s coffers were fattened with public contracts and tenders, the number of employees it hired also grew to some 1,000 people.

At one point, the cousins decided to open a secret, shared bank account in a Swiss bank that can only be accessed with at least two of the co-partners’ signatures. At first they put $9 million into the bank account, later adding more money until the amount in the account reached $15 million.

The daily reported that a disagreement arose among the partners and that one of them, Gıyasi Ö., wanted to leave the company. The other two partners made a deal to empty the
Swiss account without informing Gıyasi and had the money gradually transferred to an account in Turkey registered to the company’s secretary, Berna H. The company’s assets were also registered in Berna’s name without the knowledge of Gıyasi.

When Gıyasi went to court to sue his partners, the secret Swiss account was made public.

There are currently 20 separate legal disputes among the partners. One of the cases concerns loans which were taken out with forged signatures. It has been determined that the company took out a large number of loans using forged signatures after the cases were brought to court by Gıyasi.

The signatures given to apply for the loans turned out to be forgeries when they were examined by legal experts assigned by the court.

The daily claimed that the revelation of the secret Swiss account amid the dispute among the partners alarmed some officials in the ruling AK Party, who rushed to broker a deal among them to prevent fallout from the scandal.

The AK Party government was shaken with massive corruption allegations back in December that implicated senior officials within the party and the government. Four ministers had to resign after investigators found that they received huge sums of cash as bribes from Iranian businessman Reza Zarrab. The Dec. 25 investigation also involved allegations that the government of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan received kickbacks from companies that were awarded huge contracts and tenders to finance pro-government media.

In June, main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu called on the prime minister to prove that he does not have any secret Swiss bank accounts. The CHP leader noted that Erdoğan allegedly has eight Swiss bank accounts.